


Neville Longbottom and the Alternate Reality

by Reeve



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 21:12:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13772667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reeve/pseuds/Reeve
Summary: Neville Longbottom is the Boy Who Lived. Harry Potter was sorted into Slytherin.It's always been this way, and yet to Neville, it feels all wrong.





	Neville Longbottom and the Alternate Reality

The leaf under Neville Longbottom’s fingertip looks deceptively like a normal plant. As normal as plants get, amongst Hogwarts school’s collections. Greenhouse humidity beads on its surface, but falls away under his touch. So quiet. So still.

Neville looks  at the two bodies lying at his feet. So quiet. So still. Like the sword that still hangs from his other hand. There’s beading on its blade, too, but it’s not humidity.

Neville feels a flash of pain in his head, but it’s not from his famous scar, the one that looks like lightning. This is inside his head. It reminds him that, among other things, the scar shouldn’t be there.

He remembers many things that don’t make sense. He remembers his first day at Hogwarts, his scar drawing stares of wonder. He remembers another first day, staring at the scar on another boy. 

He remembers tending these plants. He remembers having grey flecks at his temples, when he did it.

But he’s only seventeen, in his last year at Hogwarts. So not all of those memories can be true. He can see the dead snake and the dead Slytherin still at his feet though, so that must be real.

‘Longbottom.’

Neville’s hand drops from the plant to grasp his wand at his pocket. He turns.

Draco Malfoy’s face is damp. Neville wonders how long he has been in the greenhouse. 

‘Malfoy.’

Malfoy’s eyes flick to the bodies. Down and up. ‘You brought him in here.’ 

‘Not for this,’ Neville says. ‘Of all my priorities, killing the friend of a Death-Eater-in-training wouldn’t rate high for strategy. He’s not significant.’ The sentence tastes strange, in his mouth. It tastes wrong.

Malfoy’s mouth tightens. ‘Let me—’

A long wail interrupts him. The Death Eaters are here. Neville grips his wand and sword, and runs outside. In his peripheral vision, he notices Malfoy dragging Potter’s body from the greenhouse. 

At least Malfoy’s distracted. That’s one less person for Neville to worry about fighting.

 

⌁

 

There was much screaming and blood, before it was over. But Neville had won. 

If anybody asks, he’ll say he did it for everybody; for the wizarding world. But in his mind, he has avenged his parents. That’s all, in the end.

The air smells acrid now, saturated with spent spells. The gravel underfoot crunches as Neville steps between bodies, the aftermath of war. 

He recognises Mr Malfoy among the panicking Death Eaters, frantically grasping at his pockets. Mrs Malfoy is trying to placate him. _It’s over_ , Neville sees her say. _Time to go._ Rather than be convinced, this flusters Mr Malfoy even more. _Where’s Draco?_ he demands.

It’s a good question, really. For all his bluster leading up to this day, Draco Malfoy remains conspicuously absent.

People are lost in grief and panic as they search for family amongst the rubble. Nobody looks at Neville. Unobserved, he paces into the ruins of Hogwarts school, going left, down, through a yawning hole in the wall where a secret entrance used to be. Now nothing stops Neville from entering the Slytherin common room.

It smells of burnt tapestries, and the floor is littered with broken rock. Much like the rest of the castle. But at least Neville’s escaped the thick odour of blood.

There’s a corridor at the end of the room, running to either side. The floor is dusted with grit, but a smeared line of bare stone leads down the corridor to Neville’s left. He follows it.

Soon he can hear soft clinking sounds, like vials knocking against each other. He reaches the room the sounds are coming from, and sees Potter’s body on one of the dormitory beds. Malfoy is kneeling next to it, his back to Neville. He’s leaning over Potter’s head. There’s a rack of vials and a silver bowl on the floor at Malfoy’s knees. Malfoy touches the wand to Potter’s temple. 

With one war barely over, the last thing Neville needs is a zombie apocalypse. Surely there can’t be many other things one can do with a dead body. ‘What are you doing?’ he interrupts.

Malfoy’s wand stills. He doesn’t turn around. ‘Fixing this.’

‘Trying to bring a person back to life never works, you must know that. And if you try, I’ll hex you before you can take your next breath.’

‘I’m not attempting a resurrection. Even if I were, I certainly couldn’t do it with a wand and a pensieve.’

So that’s what the dish is. It’s smaller than the ones Neville’s seen before, but he recognises some of the emblems around its lip, now. ‘Potter’s dead,’ he says, uselessly. He moves inside the room to stand next to the array on the floor. ‘You can’t take memories from a dead person.’

‘Have you tried?’

‘No, but—’

‘It might work. Retriving the last moments. I need to try.’

Neville doesn’t interrupt as Malfoy’s wand pulls a tendril of whispy silver memory from Harry’s temple. It’s faint. He holds his breath as Malfoy slowly moves it over to the pensieve.

The memory’s growing fainter as they watch, and when Malfoy’s wand is only inches from the pensieve, it finally fades to nothing.

Malfoy’s shoulder droop, his fingers loosen, and his wand rolls into the pensieve with a soft _clink_. Potter looks like he could almost be sleeping, if it weren’t for the still-oozing puncture wounds on his face.

‘I was there.’ The words are out before Neville realises he’d been thinking them. ‘I’ll show you.’

Malfoy’s eyes widen, but he’s not going to give Neville time to change his mind. He lunges for his wand.

Alarmed, Neville defensively brandishes his own. ‘I said I’d show you. Not that I’d let a Death Eater point his wand at my head and go fishing in it.’ 

Neville lifts his wand to his own temple, and draws a memory out. Silver. Strong. ‘I’m going in with you,’ he says as he lowers it to the pensieve, and as one, they lean into the bowl; into the memory. 

There’s a falling sensation, and Neville finds himself back in the Hogwarts greenhouse, looking at himself stroking leaves.

‘You have a weird thing about plants,’ Malfoy says, next to him. ‘Where’s Harry?’

Potter’s not there. But Nagini is. From his vantage point, Neville can see the snake hiding in the foliage. He wants to call out to Memory-Neville, to warn himself. It pains him that he can only observe this. ‘He’ll be here.’ 

Malfoy’s right, the plant-stroking looks weird, now that he sees it from an observer’s perspective. But, considering what he knows about this particular plant, he thinks it’s reasonable.

Neville almost feels the brush of Memory-Potter as the boy strides past him. _I’m here_ , Potter said. _What do you want, Saviour?_  

 _I’m not the Saviour,_ Neville said. _I think you are._

In real-time, Neville feels Draco stiffen beside him. 

To a perplexed Potter, he continued, _This plant generates a serum used in the Memoriae Conservo potion. It guards against cognitive interference, particular as it applies to memory retrieval. I remember I was tending it when something happened. I’m not sure what._

 _Longbottom_ , Potter said, _you’re being weird, again. I’m not even a hero, much less a Saviour. And you don’t ‘tend’ stuff here, Professor Sprout does. Also, ‘something happened’? You’ll have to be more specific._

Memory-Neville titled his head slightly to one side and asked, _You don’t want Voldemort for his policies, did you?_

Potter’s eyes narrowed. _You don’t know anything about me._

 _Inexplicably, I do,_ Neville said. _You’re about family. And, to you, family is characterised by loyalty, not blood. I imagine your parents’ response to your being put in Slytherin explains why you disregard them. As far as you’re concerned, the Malfoys are your family._

 _Draco is my family,_ Potter corrected. _He’s appreciated me from day one._

 _But, being a Malfoy,_ Neville continued, _he towed the party line. So you helped, for his sake._

 _Draco and I look out for each other,_ Potter insisted. _Always have. Always will. And you don’t know anything. So you can take your opinions and—_

 _I know you were the Boy Who Lived,_ Neville interrupted. _Now let me tell you what I remember._

Malfoy and Neville watched memory-Neville posit an alternate reality. They watched him describe a different story, proving Potter’s faith, preserving his character. They watched Potter deride it in the beginning, then consider it, then finally allow it. They watched him agree to work against the Dark Lord, if he and Draco would be pardoned. Then they watched Nagini surge from her hiding place to deal a killing strike to Potter’s face. Neville swing the sword, cutting off her head. Too late.

Potter was gasping on the ground, the snake’s poison swiftly working through him. _Draco—,_ he stuttered through his swelling throat. _H—_ _Help him._

Then Harry Potter was dead.

 

⌁

 

There is swirling mist as the memory reaches its end, and Neville is back in the Slytherin dormitories with Malfoy. ‘I didn’t know what help he thought I could give you, or that you would accept,’ he says. ‘We’re on opposite sides.’

‘I’m on Harry’s side,’ Malfoy whispers. Clear lines streak his cheeks, cutting through dirt. ‘And I know what happened. I already knew some things. The memory…filled the gaps.’ Draco takes a deep breath. ‘My father. He had an illegal Time Turner.’

Neville feels all the pieces in his head vibrating into place. ‘He went back. He made Voldemort choose me instead.’

‘I don’t know what he did, or how!’ Draco is exasperated. ‘Maybe at the time I knew, Maybe I even agreed. But I don’t remember any of that. All I know is that Harry is dead, and it’s because of my father. Father told me everything would work out. Intelligent guesswork says the Dark Lord lost the first time, and my father found a way to re-route events, despite the prophecy. Except, that prophecy could have applied to Harry too, couldn’t it?’

‘It was meant to be Potter.’ Neville breathed out, slowly. ‘Harry. It was meant to be Harry.’

Malfoy pulls a small pendant on a chain, from his pocket. ‘Then I’m going to fix this.’

The Time Turner.

Neville watches Malfoy put the chain over his head, and lift the small pendant. 

‘Malfoy.’ Neville pauses. ‘This will make— Everything will be different. Not just the Saviour. But, everything.’

‘Longbottom, you’re passably virtuous.’ Malfoy manages to make it sound less insulting than Neville had expected. ‘So tell me it was the truth, and I’ll believe you. Tell me that, if I take things back, Harry will be alive at the end. That at the end of it all, he stands.’

Neville swallows. He wonders if he should tell Malfoy that, in that other life, he and Potter weren’t even friends. But he suspects it won’t make a difference to this Malfoy. It will just make what he’s about to do, harder. So Neville simply whispers, ‘It’s the truth.’

Draco puts his fingers to the small hourglass in the centre of the pendant. 

He spins.

⌁

 

The greenhouse is bright. Expanded as part of the rebuild of Hogwarts, following the war. Leaves crush between Neville’s gloved fingers, emitting several small drops of sweet-smelling serum into the vial he holds below it. 

He fixes the stopper into the vial, places it in the pocket of his robes, and removes his gloves. He’s always pleased when plants are justifiably acknowledged for their prowess, and he trusts that Harry will do the topic justice when he talks about the _Memoriae Conservo_ potion to his Defence Against the Dark Arts students this afternoon.

The leaf under Professor Longbottom’s fingertip looks deceptively like a normal plant. 

All the plants in here, do.

But none of them are.

**Author's Note:**

> [Also posted to Wattpad, under username CaffeinatedKiwi.]


End file.
